Untitled

“What makes this later work wondrous, though, is its painterly experimentation. In a career that lasted nearly a half-century, Mr. Gaitonde kept trying out new moves. He built paint up and scraped it off. He laid it down in layer after aqueous layer, leaving stretches of drying time in between. He said himself that much of his effort as an artist was in the realm of thinking, planning, trying things out. After what appeared to be unproductive periods — he averaged only five or six paintings a year — he suddenly plunged ahead, letting accident have a hand, as he pressed bits of painted paper to canvas to make patterns, or placed paint-soaked strips of cloth on surfaces and left them there, like patches of impasto or embroidery” (H. Cotter, ‘An Indian Modernist With a Global Gaze’, The New York Times, 2 January 2015, p. 23).

The present lot is one of the very few works Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde painted in 1984, the year he had a life-altering road accident in which he sustained significant injuries that severely curtailed his artistic output for the remainder of his career. Never a prolific painter, even in earlier decades when he was in good health Gaitonde did not produce more than a few canvases in a single year. Following his accident, this output decreased even further as he turned to works on paper and smaller-scale canvases in the mid and late-1980s. Interestingly, this smaller format allowed Gaitonde’s brilliance to shine through, concentrated yet uncompromised. The present lot, with its vivid gold and scarlet palette, appears like a flame from darkness, a vehement rejection of an unplanned interruption in the career of this modern master.

Gaitonde rejected narrative, figuration, and even titles for his paintings, instead embracing what Sandhini Poddar refers to as “non-objective art.” She writes, “Gaitonde’s profound understanding of the properties and capacities of his chosen medium – painting – which constituted the sole vehicle of experience for the artist and the viewer, sets his works apart not only as deeply contemplative and refined objects, but as containers of an avid, voracious worldview, spanning the traditions of non-objective painting and Indian miniatures, Zen Buddhism and East Asian hanging scrolls and ink paintings” (S. Poddar, V.S. Gaitonde: Painting as Process, Painting as Life, New York, 2014, pp. 30–31).

Gaitonde saw the objective as the nemesis of the subjective, a distortion of the intention of his art. He read widely on Zen Buddhism, especially the concept of śūnyatā (emptiness), not as nihilism but as infinite potential. It is entirely possible that Gaitonde turned even more toward these ideas in the wake of his accident in 1984. His artistic choices reflect Zen’s emphasis on intuition, meditation and the dissolution of ego. Just as Zen calligraphy emphasizes the energy of the mark and the breath behind the gesture, Gaitonde’s painted glyphs pulse with meditative stillness and potential energy. His refusal to title works is consistent with the Zen denial of didactic meaning. The paintings become objects of meditation outside of time, not singular messages or stories. Like a Zen koan, Gaitonde invites the viewer not toward explanation but toward quiet recognition. There are similar sensibilities in Japanese masters such as Hakuin or Ryōkan, whose minimalist ink works share the same enigmatic force and restraint as Gaitonde’s own vibrating color fields of ephemeral forms. As the artist noted in a rare interview, “Emotions [are] intrinsically individual in their impact and revelation. And what I seek to portray, being true to myself, remains personal. I can only hope for a certain understanding by others. That is the reason I don't caption my paintings and why a single colour dominates my compositions” (Artist statement, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 7-13 September, 1991, p. 24).

Gaitonde’s engagement with Zen aesthetics exemplifies his deep, lifelong synthesis of ideas in his work, ranging from Indian miniature painting and classical music to Western abstraction. This formed the basis of his complex and rigorous process, which was both mentally and physically exacting. From as early as 1948, traditional Indian painting held particular importance for the artist, especially in his understanding of color, space and perspective. Traditional Indian paintings were his earliest and most enduring source, present throughout his practice as it evolved over the decades. This is evident in the present lot in Gaitonde’s use of color, dominated by red and yellow. “Several of Gaitonde’s works include a vivid yellow either as the main compositional colour or as an ocular accent. This is the yellow of the ‘Tantric Devi’ series from around 1660–70, attributed to the artist Kripal of Nurpur, one of the Pahari schools of miniature painting. Gaitonde’s own understanding of the ‘iconicity’ of an image, especially in his oils from the early 1970s onward, resonates deeply here” (S. Poddar, V.S. Gaitonde: Painting as Process, Painting as Life, New York, 2014, p. 20). The effect in this jewel-like composition is to evoke intensity of feeling rather than form.

Gaitonde expanded his engagement with Western modernism following his 1964 Rockefeller Fellowship in New York, where he was exposed to the techniques of Abstract Expressionists such as Mark Rothko’s Color Field painting, even visiting his studio. It was on this trip that Gaitonde honed his talent with the palette knife and roller to arrive at his signature style. His process came to involve a ‘lift-off’ technique, where he would apply strips of newspaper or magazine pages, cut into specific shapes, to the wet paint surface and then add another layer of pigment over them. He would then peel or ‘lift off’ the strips, creating areas where paint would gather or agglomerate, leaving behind unique textural impressions and his signature glyph-like forms. Pria Karunakar described the artist’s working process, writing, “The continual work of laying on pigment, dissolving it, stripping it off, and overlaying, like a process of nature, comes to a natural close as the pigmentation comes to a natural conclusion. The painter is at the controls. He decides when the painting has arrived at its capacity to articulate, yet he registers things intuitively” (P. Karunakar, V.S. Gaitonde, Lalit Kala Contemporary 19–20, New Delhi, 1975, pp. 15–16).

During his time in New York, Gaitonde also encountered emerging Conceptual artists such as Sol LeWitt and Joseph Kosuth, which championed the metaphysical idea in the artist’s mind as art itself. While there are no aesthetic similarities between their work, Gaitonde applied a similar philosophy to his painting process. “A painting always exists within you, even before you actually start to paint. You just have to make yourself the perfect machine to express what is already there” (Artist statement, D. Nadkarni, Gaitonde, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 1983). It is not surprising then that the largest portion of time and attention during his creative process was devoted to the formulation of the concept, the incubation and propagation of the painting as an idea in the artist’s own consciousness. Gaitonde did not make preliminary sketches, and he did not physically pick up the brush until the work was fully realized in his mind. In doing so, he achieved a fine balance of deliberation and spontaneity.

“Gai knows what he wants and works with determination to achieve it. His paintings reflect this confidence in that their structure and coloration look just right. The mark of a true artist is control, the ability to state concisely that which he wishes, but in doing so, not lose the spark of life which brought about the work’s creation. Gai’s works have that spark as well as the control, but they also live a life of their own which reaches out and involves the spectator” (R. Craven Jr., ‘A Short Report on Contemporary Painting in India’, Art Journal, Vol. 24, No. 3, 1965, p. 229).

This process illuminates Gaitonde’s deep interest in the very methodology of painting. His unique fusion of control, color and inner expression imbues this canvas with a sublimation that transcends style, remaining timeless and entirely his own. The artist’s incandescent palette radiates with a visceral heat and intensity. Unlike his more melancholic or restrained works, this flame-hued composition blazes with light and energy. Amidst veils of scarlet and golden yellow paint, forms emerge across the canvas in a quiet rhythm, like fragments of ancient glyphs. Through this process, Gaitonde articulates an astonishing range of emotion. He manipulates and mixes layers of pigment on the canvas with a precision that seems to defy accident, coordinating spontaneous reactions with intuitive control. His multilayered paintings like the present lot, filled with quiet complexity, reflect a sustained investigation into the very act of painting. This canvas straddles dualities of density and weightlessness, form and formlessness, producing tension between the translucent surface and a primordial depth beneath. Against a ground methodically layered in tones of vermillion, crimson, cadmium and gold, Gaitonde inscribes a series of enigmatic forms that appear almost like embers scorched into the surface.

As such, this painting represents a conversation between Indian miniature painting traditions, Zen aesthetics and Western abstraction. It is not an eclectic blend or amalgamation, but a deeply personal and intellectual synthesis of these streams of thought. Gaitonde’s artistic process was sophisticated, refined and all-consuming, intellectually, spiritually and physically. It is no wonder that the artist produced very few paintings over the course of his career, and even fewer following his accident in 1984. Refusing to compromise on his principles and quality, he preferred to paint only a select few smaller canvases during these challenging years. Very few from this period have been seen, and the present lot is a rare example.